


never could compete

by preromantics



Category: Glee
Genre: First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-30
Updated: 2010-12-30
Packaged: 2017-10-14 06:10:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/146213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/preromantics/pseuds/preromantics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A timeline of Blaine's kisses. <i>“Number five is my favorite,” Blaine starts, brightening up considering just at the thought, and Kurt stirs to look up at him, “with this really amazing guy I met one day at school.”</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	never could compete

**Author's Note:**

> Advent fic. Originally posted 12/01/2010.

**one.**

Molly Westerland kisses him on the cheek in first grade, after he trips over the jump rope she left on the chalk-drawing covered blacktop beside the playground.

He cries because the pavement scraped his knee, and she swoops down in a manner that’s too old for her slim seven-year-old limbs, almost motherly, and kisses his cheek, salty wet with tears, before their teacher can walk over.

He remembers that it stopped his crying, just like when his mother would kiss away his tears, and how he realized then, in a simple sort of fashion, that kisses had powers not just exclusive to one person. He also remembers feeling that Molly’s lips against his cheek were rough and scraped, a little, in the early November chill, so when his mother asked if he’d like to get any of the girls in his class a special gift for the holidays, he’d only given Molly’s name and decided to give her chapstick.

-

(Kurt laughs, when Blaine lists this as his first kiss -- “That doesn’t count at all,” Kurt says, but Blaine protests and spills a little popcorn between them on Kurt’s bed, feigning going to gather it up and grabbing at Kurt’s side instead, making him laugh harder.

“Just list the rest,” he says, breathless behind his snappiness, and he shoves Blaine’s hands away, but stays tucked against his side.)

  
 **two and three.**

Blaine didn’t feel any of the nervous and barely-hidden excitement of the other boys in his grade when he showed up at the door to his first boy-girl party in seventh grade. He didn’t feel any of the bubbling-to-the-surface nervous excitement of the girls, either, all gathered at opposite sides of John Eggert’s basement.

He only started to feel nervous when they all gathered up in a circle with a hat between them, their names all scribbled on pieces of paper inside.

Charlie Something -- Blaine knew him from their grade but couldn’t remember his last name, he’d been a new student from somewhere else this year -- nudged him before they gathered on the floor.

“Jamie told me to tell you Mary Alexander wants to pick your name out of the hat,” he whispered like a secret with a laugh, like it was something reverent.

Blaine didn’t mind Mary -- she wasn’t the brightest girl in their grade, but she was pretty, and tons of the guys liked her. He shrugged and said thanks, because Charlie seemed to want a response, and they split up and sat opposite each other in the circle.

Blaine pulled an eighth grade girl’s name who he didn’t know, who looked very put out to be shoved in the wet-smelling basement closet with him, and grabbed him by the shoulders before he could even say anything, kissing him wetly and awkwardly in a way that Blaine couldn’t possibly see being enjoyed by anyone at all, especially all the guys who talked before gym about the girls they’d kissed or wanted to kiss.

“Finally,” she’d said, pulling away when the door cracked back open and they were told to come out, something that Blaine agreed with.

He’d been shoved back in the circle after, because his own name hadn’t been pulled yet, and watched with the tiniest bubble of dread in his chest as Mary Alexander stared at him, fishing around the hat, and then with amusement when she pulled someone else.

Charlie was after Mary, and he looked as nervous as most of the guys who had yet to pull a name looked, swallowing when he fished out a scrap of paper. “Blaine,” he read, looking across the circle and waving the piece over at him.

The volume around the circle grew, and Mary, who had just returned from the closet, told them all that the rules were rules for a reason, and got John Eggert -- who, since it was his basement, had overriding rules over everything that happened -- to agree, and suddenly Blaine found himself following Charlie to the closet with everyone laughing behind them.

Charlie ducked when they were inside, and he looked pale in the light from the one bare lightbulb hanging over them in the musty closet. “Sorry,” he said, “they should’ve switched the hats, probably.”

“Probably,” Blaine agreed, standing awkwardly across from Charlie and looking up at the light.

“How was it with -- that girl, the one you went in with?” Charlie asked.

Blaine laughed quickly before he could stop himself. “Wet,” he said, “and weird, I don’t --”

“Oh,” Charlie said, cutting him off and looking disappointed.

“I’m sure it’s not always like that,” Blaine said, because it probably wasn’t, to other people, and Charlie seemed genuinely sad to hear it wasn’t amazing.

“We could -- just,” Charlie said, after a long pause, gesturing with his hands, “while we’re in here, I mean.”

Blaine got what he meant after a second, and stood up a little straighter, a little closer. “Yeah,” he said, “sure,” sounding as awkward as Charlie but not feeling as much -- the idea itself seemed more exciting than the prospect of kissing any of the girls in the other room.

They pressed their faces together awkwardly, their lips coming together and staying there, unmoving for several seconds while Blaine’s cheeks heated up, his lips moving just slightly before they stopped and leaned away.

“I’m sure it’s better with a girl or something,” Charlie said thoughtfully when they broke apart, stepping back and looking down at his feet just as the door cracked open again.

“Or something,” Blaine agreed, too late as Charlie walked out of the door, and he ducked his head at the whistles of the group outside, who probably all thought they didn’t do anything anyway.

-

(“I don’t know if that’s more sad or hilarious,” Kurt says, after a second, and Blaine groans into his shoulder.

“It was horrifying,” Blaine says, but he can’t help but laugh, stealing away some of the popcorn in Kurt’s hand and putting it in his own mouth.

“Next one first,” Kurt says, holding his hand out of reach when Blaine goes to grab more kernels.)

 **four.**

Mary Alexander did, in fact, like him. She asked him to the movies (several times, loudly and in public) and he’d gone along, mostly in the face of her awkward desperation. She was pretty and smelled nice, like maybe she had borrowed some of her mother’s perfume to feel more grown up.

He didn’t mind holding her hand in the theater, and when her older brother, one of the stars of the local high school hockey team, picked them up after their movie, she told Blaine he should come over and watch another movie, since their parents were away.

“I’m Alex,” Mary’s older brother said, while they stood awkwardly in the kitchen, waiting for Mary to get everything set up.

“Alex Alexander,” Blaine had said, laughing a little too high, “what were your parents thinking?”

Alex had laughed in a way that told Blaine he’d heard that several times before, and he’d passed a coke into Blaine’s hand, his fingers lingering. “Mary really wants you to like her,” he said.

Blaine nodded at that. “She’s nice, she’s --” he started, intending to say something about her that wouldn’t make her older brother mad, but Alex laughed and cut him off, and all the sudden was leaning in, pressing Blaine back against the hard counter with force, the edge digging into Blaine’s spine as he pressed their mouths roughly and inelegantly together while Blaine squirmed ineffectually back against the cabinets.

He’d almost relaxed into it, his head a mess, Alex overbearing and large and pressing too hard, but it was all off, and the counter hurt against his shoulders, and a high noise almost like a shriek broke them apart, Blaine’s can of coke that he’d been crushing beneath his fingers dropped to the floor.

Blaine had walked all the way home, even though it took over forty minutes.

-

(“I transferred to Dalton at the end of eighth grade,” Blaine says, looking at the framed minimalist art print of Marie Antoinette next to Kurt’s dresser.

“Did she say -- ?” Kurt asks, pressing closer in a way that makes Blaine glad for the weight and the warmth, even if he doesn’t want to look at Kurt for a moment.

“She told everyone,” Blaine says, “yeah. Of course her brother said it was all my fault, and all of the sudden I not only had the wrath of the seventh grade, but almost the entirety of the high school jock Neanderthals weighing down on me.”

Kurt’s fingers find his own, and he lets out a low little laugh that’s almost wry. “You stayed for a year after that?”

“I thought it would get better,” Blaine says, low, curling his fingers tight around Kurt’s own, still at the point where it stops him in his far-away thoughts and makes him marvel at how nearly perfectly their hands fit together.

They sit in silence for a moment. “Number five is my favorite,” Blaine starts, brightening up considering just at the thought, and Kurt stirs to look up at him, “with this really amazing guy I met one day at school.”

Kurt scrunches up his noise for a second, and Blaine grins.)

  
 **five.**

  
It took Blaine a few weeks to realize that maybe, yes, Kurt wouldn’t mind if he gave into the desire to kiss him that sprung up every time he downed a mocha with just a little scrape of indulgent cream on top that clung to his upper lip, or every time Kurt got particularly enthused about something, or smiled, or looked downtrodden, or -- well, any time Blaine was around him.

He spent a while working hard at trying to be whatever Kurt needed, a friend, a confidant, someone to help be the person he needed. Except he spent so long trying not to scare Kurt suddenly away he missed the part where Kurt started wanting him to be something more.

Maybe he missed it in the first place, but it wasn’t until Blaine finally, finally gave in, under the first snowfall of the winter. The flakes had started falling fat and fast while Blaine was driving Kurt home from the cafe they’d spent the better part of the afternoon after school pretending to study in, and it took about two minutes for Blaine to decide that they needed to detour to the park before going home.

“I’m not dressed for snow at all,” Kurt had said, sliding out of the passenger door and taking Blaine’s extended hands which he used to press Kurt’s hands between his own, rubbing to keep them both warm.

“You look fine to me,” Blaine said, because he did -- he had a heavy coat on, but mostly Blaine was looking at his face, the light flush on his cheeks that picked up as the cold wind around them threw bits of snow against Kurt’s cheeks.

Blaine looked around the park, watching the first snow of the year begin to stick to the green grass, still holding on desperately to the stiff frost it had grabbed hold of in the morning. It didn’t make for too pretty a view, not yet -- just patchwork spots of white and green with mud in between from the people who had trudged through on their afternoon jogs, but in an hour everything would be white.

Kurt was shivering, just barely, and Blaine almost felt bad for detouring -- he’d always liked snow, couldn’t help it -- but he felt fine after looking back to Kurt’s face, at the way he was grinning and taking in the park around him, snow falling into his hair and down, oh, down to his eyelashes, flakes getting caught on the fine pieces.

Blaine could barely contain the (consistent, always there) impulse to duck in and kiss Kurt, and found himself halfway there before he could pull away, ducking in and pulling one of his hands up to swipe along Kurt’s cheekbone, up so he could press away one of the flakes clinging to his lashes with the barest touch of his thumb.

“I’m not going to break,” Kurt said, cold against Blaine’s face, eyes a little wide.

Blaine had gone to pull his hand away, misunderstanding, but Kurt grabbed it and brought it back to his face, closing the distance between them. Blaine had grinned, delighted, in the space and seconds between where their lips met, soft for only a second before Blaine gave up holding himself back entirely, pressing Kurt back against his car and kissing him for long enough that his lungs almost burned when he pulled back for a deep breath, and little piles of snowflakes had accumulated over both of their heads.

-

(“I swear if you hadn’t pulled over and dragged me out of the car --”

“I didn’t drag you,” Blaine protests, gradually pushing Kurt back against the bed, sliding down along with the pillows.

“-- we would’ve gone on being stupid like that forever,” Kurt finishes, not too eloquently, though Blaine doesn’t blame him, having just been nearly tossed onto a hasty stack of pillows.

Blaine doesn’t explain how he was holding back for Kurt’s sake, because they’ve been through that and laughed at their mutual ridiculousness, so instead he pushes himself up and rolls easily over Kurt below him on the bed.

“Which would have sucked,” Blaine agrees, grinning wide, “because then I wouldn’t be able to do this.”

He ducks down, his face hovering an inch from Kurt’s, who makes an impatient face up at him. “I meant it, though,” he says, “you’re my favorite.”

“I can see why, compared to the rest,” Kurt says, definitely affectionately, reaching up to tug Blaine down under the guise of running his fingers through Blaine’s hair with constant pressure.

“It’s more than that,” Blaine protests, but he shakes his head to loosen Kurt’s hand from his head and then hovers for a moment just to see the look on Kurt’s face turn gradually, endearingly annoyed before he rolls his hips down over Kurt’s and catches his bottom lip on a gasp.)


End file.
